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Maryland residents will soon have access to an all-trimester abortion clinic, one of few that will be built across the United States.

The Partners in Abortion Care will offer patients an abortion all the way up until the third trimester, which is up to 34 weeks gestation. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a majority of abortions in the United States were conducted just before 13 weeks gestation. Fewer than 1 percent were done after 21 weeks. Typically, a full-length pregnancy lasts around 40 weeks.

The College Park-based clinic is already bracing itself to receive an influx of patients from northern states where abortions have been banned due to the historic overturning of Roe v. Wade.

We’re definitely going to be seeing people who wanted an abortion two or three months ago and could not navigate the web of restrictions, or could not come up with the funding, or could not get transportation or child care or time off of work,” Diane Horvath, one of the co-founders of the clinic told NPR. “That’s a really common story,” she continued. “And it’s really sad because it doesn’t have to be this way.”

The clinic will offer abortion care to everyone regardless of race, gender, age, size, and ability, the website states. Horvath hopes the facility will help to de-politicize abortion care at all stages of pregnancy.

“Every time we draw a line and we say ‘no more abortions after this point,’ someone’s going to fall on the other side of that line, and they’re going to be harmed.”

Challenges lie ahead for the clinic

Maryland is one of few states that expanded abortion laws after Roe V. Wade was passed. In July, a law was enacted to expand abortion care among health providers. Now, in addition to doctors, qualified physician assistants, nurse practitioners and midwives will also have the right to perform an abortion in the state.

While the news could be life-changing for people in need of abortion care, there are still many hurdles that lie ahead for the new clinic. Safety concerns are one of them. Abortion clinics have been slammed with an uptick of violence and harassment over the last year.

“It’s scary,”  Morgan Nuzzo, another co-founder of the clinic, said. “It’s very hard to continue to do work when you think about all the violence that’s directed at you. And it’s not imagined. It’s not made up. They want to kill us. They want to shoot us.”

 

Partners in Abortion Care will open sometime after Labor Day.

 

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